In recent years, research and development has advanced which is conducted on variable resistance nonvolatile memory devices having memory cells which include so-called variable resistance elements (hereinafter, also simply referred to as “nonvolatile memory devices”). A variable resistance element is an element that has a property of changing its resistance value according to an electrical signal, and allows information to be written thereto due to such a change in the resistance value.
One structure of memory cells which include variable resistance elements is a crosspoint structure. In the crosspoint structure, each memory cell is placed at a different one of crosspoints of orthogonally arranged bit lines and word lines so as to be interposed between one of the bit lines and one of the word lines. Conventionally, various configurations of a nonvolatile memory device having such a crosspoint structure have been proposed (Patent Literatures (PTLs) 1 to 6 and Non-Patent Literature (NPL) 1, for instance).